So, you think that you might like to try to expand the reach of your ministry beyond the four walls of your church? You heard that some pastors are pod-casting their sermons, and you'd like to do the same.
But, before you jump into something, you want to do a cost-benefit analysis. Way to go! This article will help you understand the costs associated with podcasting.
Financial costs:I suppose that there are all sorts of ways you could spend money on your podcast--you could buy ads for your podcast or you could hire someone to produce it. However, there are really only two elements that are required to help you get your podcast off the ground--recording and hosting.
The good news is--your church may already have everything you need in order to
record your podcast. If you already have a good sound system in your church, all you need to do is to hook onto a line-out or a tape-out and connect to a recording device. You might be able to use your computer, using software like
Audacity to record. Or, you may already have a real-time CD-Recorder or mini-disc recorder.
Neither of those options worked for me, so I purchased a little MP3 player made by iRiver. The beauty of this particular MP3 player is that it has a line-in jack, so I can hook it directly to the sound system and simply press record. Later I connect it to my computer to edit and produce the audio file. I don't believe iRiver is making this device anymore, so you'd have to try to find something similar. However, this cost less than $150.
Hopefully, your church already has a website where you can
host your podcast. Make sure that you have FTP access to your website, and that you have plenty of space and bandwidth for what you want to do. My audio files are about 10-15MB each, and I currently have about 500 downloads a week. I will be archiving my sermons for at least a year, although at some point I will probably have to start deleting the oldest ones. If you don't have any hosting space, head on over to
www.yourchurchweb.net for some great hosting plans designed for churches and ministries, with most price tags under $100/yr.
Outside of these two costs, it's really up to you and what you feel led to do with your podcast. Instead of recording your live sermon, you could use a more conversational approach and record it in your office. There are podcasting packages available which let you convert your office computer into a podcasting studio. See the amazon.com box at the left for some ideas of what's available.
You might want to include some professional production elements, either some voice-overs or some music beds to add a classy touch. If you have connections in the recording or radio industries, you might be able to get these done for free, however you might end up investing some money into production.
While there is free software and utilities available to handle your editing, production, conversion, uploading, and blogging--it's possible that you might not like one of the free utilities and decide to spend some money on something different. Utilities could cost as little as $20, and I imagine you could spend up to $500 on audio production software if you felt the need.
However, I'm approaching this from the perspective that we want to be high-quality and low cost--at least as much as possible.
Time Costs: For me, the biggest investment in podcasting my sermons has
not been the financial cost. I used birthday money to get the MP3 player, I'm using the church's sound system and microphone for the recording, and the church's website for the publication. I've used free software and utilities for every single step along the way.
Instead, my biggest investment has been the time that I've put into the podcast. Once you are set up, time investment could be divided into the categories of recording, production/syndication, promotion.
Most weeks, I
record the sermon as I deliver it to the congregation. I simply don't have time to do a separate delivery for my pod-regation. However, there are weeks that I forget to hit the record button (I am the tech department at my church, and the sound system mostly runs on auto-pilot!), the battery runs out before the service is over, or some other technical problem keeps me from using the recording that I made during the service. On those weeks, I usually go back into the church that afternoon and preach the sermon to empty pews, trying to recreate any unique moments that weren't reflected in my manuscript. In those cases, I would spend an additional 30 minutes on recording.
Every Sunday afternoon (sometimes Monday morning), I sit down at the computer to
produce & syndicate the show. This involves transferring the file to the computer, opening it in
Audacity, removing any bits that I don't want published, adding my production elements, processing the file, uploading and blogging the file. All of this takes about an hour-and-a-half to two hours(weekly).
About once a month, I will spend some time
promoting my podcast. I'll look for podcast directories that it's not listed in and list them. I'll try to see what new developments there are that could enhance the podcast. I test out all of my feeds and files to make sure it's all working. This can take about an hour or more--depending on how ambitious I feel.
Since I'm going through the work of recording and producing these files, I also create four CDs each week, which are available in our church foyer for a suggested donation of $2 each. This takes an additional 30-45 minutes each week--creating the labels and burning the CDs.
To sum it up--I invested a one-time financial contribution of $150 for my MP3 player. I also invest between 10 and 15 hours each month into recording, producing, and promoting our podcast.
Stay tuned for a post detailing the benefits!
Grace and Peace,
PastorJon
